Rain sat on the edge of the unfamiliar sofa, her hands anxiously fidgeting with the frayed denim hem of her shorts. She had been asked to dress nice for this event, but to spite them all - in her last and final act of rebellion - she had worn paint-splotched denim shorts and a ratty old tank top. This was her middle finger to the idea of this arranged pairing, to the idea that she, as a young woman, could not choose her mate for herself. She was inexplicably and irrevocably in love with her best friend, but instead, her brother, the Alpha, had dictated her current fate like a death sentence. "You will be sent to the White Lightning Pack," he had roared, silencing all of her objections. "To Beta Sitkowski."
Beta Sitkowski was the man that was currently standing in the doorway to this room, eyeing her with a mixture of gentle curiosity and controlled hunger. To his credit, he had stood his ground for several minutes now, giving her ample personal space, and never once suggesting that he might force himself on her. Thank the goddess for small mercies! Some of the stories that had been passed down had been pretty graphic as to what would happen on the evening of a pairing, on the night of an eighteenth birthday. Some men were animals!
She snorted at the irony of her own thoughts, then tried to peek at him through her plush eyelashes. He was handsome, that was clear. He was average height for a male wolf, around 5'10", average weight, with dark brown hair and thick, dark lashes that hid chocolatey irises that were fully alive. They had followed her every movement earlier when she was pacing the room like a caged animal, in fact, right now, she felt very much like she and her wolf were back into the corner of that cage.
"I'm not going to bite you," he cleared his voice and took one small step into the room.
Rain snorted again. "Yes, you are! Isn't that the point of all of this?"
To his credit, this made him brandish a smile that quirked sideways and it made him look younger than his twenty-something years. "I meant that I'm not going to hurt you, Rain. I have no desire to force myself onto an unwilling mate."
"Good to know," she sighed and leaned back onto her hands on the bed. "So, why don't you send me back home?"
He took a step to the left this time, then began to pace in a small circle. "Rain, I wasn't part of the decision that brought you here. If you refuse our pairing and want to go home, I will speak to our Alpha, but I am warning you that he's not the most understanding of men."
"He made a deal with my father when I was born, and I want out of that deal," she sighed.
Ryan nodded slowly. "Actually, that would have been the first Alpha Cerulli, who recently stepped down. He was a very patient and understanding leader, a good man who fought to always do right by all of his people."
Rain laughed at the clear irony embedded in his words. "Which means that your current Alpha is none of those things?"
"I would definitely say that my brother is an acquired taste," Ryan smirked. "One that not all of us have acquired!"
YOU ARE READING
White Lightning
Werewolf[Ongoing Serial Novel][Werewolf] [MIW] In our world, for every female pup born there were five very eager and wanton males waiting for her to turn of age. Some packs considered their females to be ripe at sixteen, but my great-grandfather had establ...
